Who of this, can claim to have weathered such pain.
The souls of ages past.

Am I ghost
Am I flesh

I am of nothing, and of hope

Or Nothing
Nothing
Nothing

less


I pledge goodness onto all
I pray thee suffer small

So did I find me.
hobbling on the shore
And did I find me, set of sail
In search for distance
No prospect of destination
Distance bought cheaply
Destined for the the ends of earth

Yet I seek grace
Found at hearth
Of passion pain renewing birth
Forward on
Forward
For
Ward
For passage home
I find myself
On homeward bound

Cast adrift at youth
A child of pumice

To float and soul of ash

Great of hope
Hope at last
My path uncharted
My ropes to lash

Weary but of indifference
to resign
His hope is his design
His hope
Is shared

His hope is mine.

He held my hand and promised true
Walks with him
I came undone

Of the night I came to speak
To visions, voices
Past unknown

So Rocky were the waves and anchor towed
The roads travailed  
The weights unload

Traveled
Wandering
Determined, sailed

Into
The casims
Of the heart
Never faulter
Or
repeat
But, Render

Entreat
Into light

And in his hands my cares were held
My future , past and present meld

Into
entrusted
I to he
My penitence
To chart my course

A sinking ship
With last recourse

Do you mean the ones who live on the other side?
Clear across the ocean, two miles in from the tide?

The ones that live with little means or the ones that live like we were meant to?
That work, play, stress, fear, and cry, just like we do?

The men who were created from the earth and the women from Adam's rib?
The ones who fall asleep staring at the same galaxies wondering if we're all there is?

Do you mean the ones in straw houses near dirt roads?
That learn how to survive on the land and wear the clothes that they sew?

Others and me,
I'm sorry, pardon me... I'm just slightly confused
Because when I think of them, I think of me
I can't separate the two.

Like Breugel's Icarus
my brother Michael
dropped into the depths of the sea
unnoticed

Born at the bottom
of a crater of the moon
the sweetest foundling
since creation

His swaddling clothes
were denim and the blues
his pillow
a bottle of rye

This sweet soul
lived half a life
in halfway houses
and cheap motels
reeking of cigarettes
reeling from the *****

When he punched his ticket
on the midnight train to eternity
no one was surprised

I arranged the cremation
a fire that burned
more than one life

I gathered his ashes
and set out
for the crest of the Sierra Nevada

Alone
with my memories,
his ashes
and the cold stone
of those adamant heights

and then east
through the wastes of Nevada
the endless expanse
of the basin and range

A pilgrimage, of sorts
dedicated to nothing
and no one

Just the upthrust range
the solemn and self-absorbed peaks
the dessicated pine
and a wind
that scoured the soul.

Silence weighs so heavy
Like a conscience
Like a hunger
Like a baby
Vacuous and greedy
Devouring and needy
And totally insatiable

I could talk of death here
But why lighten the mood
For silence is a serious thing
A damning thing
Immaculate
Incapable of compromise
And unforgiving

No movement is possible
For silence is
As solid as space
A rare and terrible concept
And this perfection
Is unutterably arid

Only time is worse

Glorious suffering,
Born among the mysterious poor,
Shredding darkness with tiny
Bits of light that illuminate minutes,
The crests of moments, colorful,
Spreading across a grateful soul,
A manifestation of grace in poverty,
Streets of the nocturnal
that disperse into industrial days
Where they sweat the blood
And honor their young,
The poor have secret places
Gathering in the heart,
A rhythmic harmony in the simplicity,
They hear the birds,
Embrace the wind
And kiss the sorrows goodnight.

The heat is relentless
I wait around for dusk to arrive
While waiting for
Reprieve to arrive
While my father is fading
We are waiting
He is wading in
Still waters
Between the worlds
He says the words
Of peyote guides
In the crystalline skies
I saw in your soul
That time at the crossroads
And there are blue auras
About the land
I know not who
Heard echos spoken
They didn't see
How many are broken

I am prey to the unyielding Sun
here in this open field
void of shade
holding precious pieces
untouched for 140 years
200 acres of Virginia farmland beneath my feet
where bullets flew
where strong men screamed
and the soil looked as if it had rained blood
death can come quickly or painfully slow

A soldier rips the Eagle breastplate from his chest
and throws it to the ground where I am standing
and here in the sweltering heat
of a calm June afternoon
I pull it from its resting place
no longer shining
140 years removed
from the failing heart
beneath it

I'm dying,
Feeling the comforting cloud of death
doing flip-flops through my strain.
Energy bursts are useless attempts
     at frosting flakes of panic and regrets.
Slipping.
Forgetting.
Curt instructions from a dangerous smile.

Cloud of death. Your mysterious tension
        caresses every
        blood-vein in my body.
My lungs restrict,
my lungs constrict.
Empty shallow boxes
      filled with the nothing of
        resistance.

Can’t anyone see? Does anybody know?

Does
    anybody
     have the
      slightest idea
       of just how
        tiresome
         paying
          attention
           can be?

So let me go. So leave me alone.
Let the fibres of believing unravel,
        slip apart
        like
        cracked glass
          about to
          shatter.
I'm hurting.
Disillusioned membranes zoning into silence.
The self-illusion so palpable and strong.
Hope
      is for people
             who have
                   flowers to grow.

Is this our reality?
Never admitting to the faults of the dark corners
that makes the room of our existence?
Never speaking of the truth that is believed by each
soul to come with age?
Never being that light we so crave from another?
Can we stare at each-other for more than five seconds
In unadulterated silence?
Why does a brother disguised as a stranger seem
irrelevant to you and your experience?
No soul claims to know from some higher being
with perfect certainty the meaning in our life
like it's easy
No one knows why we die someday
or the answers to those questions
We keep talking, keep driving, keep moving
like mad people to a sense of normalcy
consumed in distraction
You know when I stare at the moon
she stares back and sees me In her pale light
as I am, as I was and how I will be
When will somebody stare at me like the moon does
when I'm under her?
I didn't laugh at this cosmic joke of being born
only to be sentenced to die someday
My purpose is vague in those little things
that cause hair loss and weight gain
My purpose seems obscure...
And that would be alright If I
had developed trust in this chaos
that appears so senseless
And tomorrow is just another day of
pretending I'm okay within this
shifting weather.
It's got to give sometime
I couldn't find it in the bible or in
spirituality and
I couldn't find it in the people surrounding me
I can't find it in the sky or glimpses of the galaxy
I search from place to place like a gypsy
for some solace of a place I can't find within me
Its like disassociation when you cannot feel the
water falling off your skin
And life is only a dream.  
I thought about the alpha and omega but
It hasn't thought of me
And now I'm left here writing of my
meanderings

The furniture in my mind could do with some feng shui
The comforter's in front of the doorway
and the television's on the floor
Static electricity when I try to explain
all of these things within my brain
I wanna ask if it's okay to
relieve myself of my meanderings
Will I be locked away after I have said something
that shook my core and changed my course
always defensive or raw and coarse
I just want to be true to myself and to you
I just want to know the answers to questions
Iv'e been dreaming through
Maybe tomorrow or on a Sunday
I'll wake up and It'll all be okay
Because I have been thinking about my
life and everything in between
If there is no life after death
I'd like to understand the meaning
I want to talk about the cosmos and things I can't see
the ghosts of my desires self-inflicted injuries
I want to hear in my soul that music that is in silence
after it has been interrupted by some perceived violence
To disconnect from the illusions
that others told me I should pursue-
Sports cars, a marriage, a big house with a baby carriage
Maybe I believe in something else
That at times I ignore from inside myself
There is no right way
So I'll dance, sing and sway
to the music that only I am hearing
while others around me are pondering
"What is he dancing to?"